


The Black Sands

by TrekFaerie



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Action/Adventure, Afterlife, Frenemies, Gen, Old Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrekFaerie/pseuds/TrekFaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death is the most human of adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Though Susan had let Lobsang have a few liberties with his powers during their relationship-- after all, if she had forbidden him to stop time or take a vacation thousands of years ago or show up late to dinner because he was Saving Reality, she would have been a hypocrite, and there were few things she hated more-- but there were some things she just wouldn't stand for. She didn't join him to live outside of time, preferring to stay in a respectably-sized flat in Ankh-Morpork. She didn't let their children go either, even though the more romantic of them wished to and the more sensible of them eventually fell into going. [1] She wouldn't let him turn back the clock and fix everything, even the terrible things.

And she wouldn't let him stop her death.

Age had turned the majority of Susan's hair a deep black, with a shock of silver in the middle, making her look like a better class of late-night horror host. Everything about her screamed “spinster” from the top of its scratchy little lungs, but this was miles away from the truth. It was actually one of her daughters, one of the sensible ones, Elizabeth, who forewarned her about her death. A little bird had told her.

“Quoth came by this morning with a letter from Grandfather,” she said, taking off her hat as she stepped into the house. “He said I was to bring it to you, since I'm the only one living in Ankh-Morpork right now. I asked why he didn't just bring it to you directly, but he just mumbled something about 'orders.'”

Elizabeth offered to stay and have tea with her mother while they read the letter, but Susan just shushed her off-- she had important things to do back at the University, far more important things that didn't involve hanging around and drinking tea with an old woman. She was rather reluctant, but her mother was persistent enough to get her out the door. Susan knew exactly what was in the letter; she didn't want any of her children to see.

First, she made herself some tea, watching the letter out of the corner of her eye while she did so, as if expecting it to do a trick. Then, she settled down in her favorite chair in front of the fireplace and drank the tea. Then she put the cup down. Only then did she allow herself to open the slightest corner of the envelope.

Lobsang arrived seconds later. “I won't let it happen,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

“Would you let me read it first? Honestly.” And she did read it, several times over, before primly putting the letter down on her lap before her shaking hands betrayed her. She had known what the letter would be about long before it had even been penned. She knew that this day was inevitable. And yet, surprisingly, knowing didn't make her feel any better. She wondered how witches did it.

“How long?” Time had not touched Time, and he still looked as young as the day they had first met, but grief marred his features. She knew what he was imagining: an eternity without her. Maybe he had already visited it once or twice, to prepare himself for this day. He wasn't.

“You of all people should know that.”

“I need to hear it.”

She sighed. “An hour. Perhaps less, if I call on him. Grandfather is very dramatic.”

“Why did you send her away? He wanted her to be with you. So you wouldn't--”

“Die alone. Like I said, very dramatic.” She put her hand over his-- old over young, changed over unchanged. “He seemed to forget about you.”

“Yes, he does do that a lot, doesn't he?” He seemed to smile a bit, but his grip on her hand showed how he truly felt. “It.. You don't have to, Susan!”

“Oh, there are many things I don't have to do.” Like walk through doors. Or be visible. Or watch people die. “This is just one of the things I must.”

For his part, Lobsang did stay by her side, holding her hand, until her life left her. She watched from above him as, despite himself, he shook her gently and called her name a few times. For a moment, she almost felt like going back, like barging her way into Grandfather's home and turning her hourglass upside down again and staying... But, as he slipped seamlessly back into Time, she knew that this was how it had to be. The way it had to happen.

Death showed up the instant Lobsang had left; they had never been on the best of terms, with Lobsang always upset by Death's meddling and Death just resenting anyone who monopolized his beloved granddaughter's affection so. He stood awkwardly next to her, as if this were his first reaping and he had no idea what to do next. Minutes passed like hours.

She sighed. “Grandfather.”

HE IS RIGHT, YOU KNOW.

That surprised her more than anything. “What?”

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS. IT WOULD BE QUITE SIMPLE, REALLY, PREVENTING IT. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO HAPPEN.

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Oh, really? But what about the Laws of the Universe?”

I BELIEVE THE HUMAN PHRASE WOULD BE: BUGGER THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE.

She laughed; its thinness frightened her somewhat. “Grandfather, please understand: All my life, I've been trying to be a normal human. What could be more normally human than this?”

CROCHETING IS RATHER POPULAR THESE DAYS.

“Grandfather.” Despite his obvious reluctance, she could feel herself fading. “Grandfather, promise me you'll patch things up with Lobsang. He really is a good man.”

I WILL... TRY.

“And watch after the children. Make sure William doesn't try saving the world again; it's becoming a nasty habit.”

I WILL.

“... I love you very much, Grandfather.”

The lights that acted as his eyes seemed to dim somewhat. AND I YOU. GOOD LUCK, GRANDDAUGHTER.

As she faded away completely, she wondered what she would need it for.

“Well, you certainly took your time, didn't you?”

She would find out soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Just a while off in the sands-- though she was certain she hadn't seen it before-- was a massive stone, smooth and black as the sands themselves. Sitting on this stone was a slight figure all in black, with a mop of blond curls and a smile that would've been more at home on a jack o' lantern than a human's face. Though it had been many years, more than Susan would ever admit to, she knew exactly who it was.

“Jonathan Teatime. I must be in hell.”

From far away, he looked exactly as he had the night he died, but Susan had no intention of going closer to confirm this. “All these years, Susan, and you haven't even managed to learn to pronounce it correctly? I'm disappointed.”

“It wasn't exactly a priority of mine.” He was kicking his feet back and forth like an impatient child, and she mentally cursed him for his youth. She wasn't exactly sure what he was capable of here-- Grandfather had never felt the need to explain it to her-- but, whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Supernatural as she was, she was a tired old woman, and he was still a young man. A young man with a score to settle. “I haven't thought about you in decades.”

He jumped off the rock delicately, his feet not even making a dent in the dark sands. His footprints faded fast as he walked towards her, as if a breeze had smoothed them away. “Has it been decades? My, my, that does put things in perspective for me.” His smile reflected the rays of a nonexistent sun. “I've thought of nothing but you since the day I got here.”

Now that he was closer, she realized that he did not look exactly the same. The body, voice, hair-- all of that was completely identical. But not the face. Susan remembered vaguely a certain marble of her old charge Gawain, how she had always suspected it to be... Whatever had been in Teatime's eye after his death was gone now. In fact, most of his face was as well: Something that could be called a void but looked more like a miasma had replaced it, a shifting, consuming darkness that was slowly eating away at him. It flickered at the edge of his lips as he smiled once more, grimly. “It's very difficult for a human spirit to remain in this realm for an extended period of time. I do hope you will appreciate my effort.”

“Appreciate? What is there to appreciate? A reception by old enemies? I would have preferred a card.” She tried not to look at the darkness and then cursed her own weakness. Human spirits, he had said. Did that mean she would be able to reach the end of the desert-- wherever and whatever that was-- with her mortal form more or less intact, even if she was waylaid by a certain overly-dedicated Assassin? Small favors, she supposed. “Why are you even here?”

“Well, for the longest time, I had assumed your grandfather would accompany you, so I thought if I came up behind him quickly enough...” His smile faltered a bit. “I obviously scrapped that plan upon your arrival.”

“Then I suppose you'll be taking your leave then. Good-day.”

She started off, pointedly going around the rock, but then heard an odd noise, like a tongue clucking in disapproval, and Teatime was suddenly in front of her, arms crossed over his chest. Apparently a few of his “talents” hadn't faded over the years. “I've been waiting a very long time, Susan.”

“And now your wait is over. Isn't that nice?”

“I want to see you die.”

She gave him a look reserved for dull students and misbehaving grandchildren. “I'm already dead.”

“Not fully. Some sects believe a person isn't truly dead until they reach the end of the desert.” The smile was back, ingratiatingly pleasant as always. “I shall accompany you on your journey and watch you leave into the void. Only then will I be satisfied and able to leave myself.”

It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. How overly dramatic. “You're not coming with me.”

“Oh, did I imply that you had a choice in the matter? Frightfully sorry about the misunderstanding.” He held up his hands in a mockery of an apology. “You see, the desert might look large, but there is really only one way to the end. Our paths won’t split until that point.”

Of course. Why would something as common as dying ever be easy, for her? Her mouth narrowed into a thin, grim line, and she began to walk forward through the desert. Teatime kept pace.


	3. Chapter 3

Teatime was annoying.

He was constantly trying to start up conversation, which Susan quite obviously didn't want to have. He often sighed loudly as if he were the one being put-upon. He had a nasty habit of walking for extended periods of times of the balls of his feet seemingly without noticing it, which made her wonder if he had been a dancer, which made her imagine him in tights, which made her physically ill.

“This is taking much longer than it had before,” Teatime said, a whining lilt to his voice. “Must we walk the entire way?”

“Unless you can make that rock move, I don't believe we're going to find a trolley stop here.” She glanced at him. “'Before?'”

“Certainly you couldn't think I spent all those years sitting on that rock.” He sniffed indignantly. “I had many exciting adventures here that you shall never be privy to.”

“I'm sure.”

“I met a golem once.”

“Did you.”

“He wasn't much for conversation. You two would've gotten on splendidly.”

“Have you ever reached the end?”

This stopped him short, and he got a strange look on his face. “... I don't wish to talk about it.”

“You, not wanting to talk about something? It must be very embarrassing, then.”

“Why embarrassing? It could be that I don't think the story proper for a lady to hear.”

“Because you're you, and if it were gruesome you would've told me the second I arrived.”

“You certainly do know a lot about someone you only knew for one Hogswatchnight.”

“I've always known you, Teatime--”

“Teh-ah-tim-eh.”

“-- or, at least, your type. You're remarkably predictable.”

"Hm. Funny. I always thought that being unpredictable was one of my more charming qualities."

As charming as bag of snakes. She rolled her eyes. "Do you remember what I said about talking?"

"That if I were to do too much of it, you'd find some way to turn sand into a poker?"

"I've thought up three ways in which I could do it. Don't test me, boy."

He was blissfully silent for the rest of the trip.

Eventually, they stopped in front of a... well, if nothingness shimmered and could form itself into a wall, that would be what they had stopped in front of. "Beyond this wall is whatever you're expecting it to be." There was a slight malicious twinge behind that smile, but there always was, so she ignored it. "Go on. Step through."

"You first."

"All I want is to see you die, Susan. Would you be so cruel as to deny me that one pleasure?"

"Yes." Still, she could see that he wasn't going to budge, so she took a deep, nonexistent breath and soldiered on.

Right into the wall, which was suddenly a lot more solid than nothingness had any right being.

Beyond the ringing of her ears, she heard a child's laughter, and through the haze of pain she saw Teatime doubled over in hysterics. Her mouth curled into a tight line, she suddenly grabbed hold of a fistful of blond curls and slammed Teatime face-first into the wall. An unbelievably petty act, sure, but the solid thunk his head made was very satisfying to her.

He crumpled to the ground once she let him go, hands clasped to his face. "You broke my nose!"

"Oh, shut up, you don't even have a nose anymore."

"Well, if I did, you would've broken it!" He sighed and flopped back on the dark sands, looking as if he were five minutes away from making sand angels. "How strange... I always thought the only thing keeping me here was your continued life... Very strange..."

"What are you talking about?"

"You can't move on to whatever is waiting out there if you still have regrets, something left undone on the mortal coil. It's how you get ghosts and poltergeists and other annoying creatures like that."

She stepped back and considered his statement. What could possibly be keeping her back? There was her youngest and his wife and their expected first in the spring, but if that were enough to hold one back the desert would be crawling with distressed grandmothers. As she could only see one grandmother, and she was merely an even combination of confused and slightly miffed, it had to be something else. But what could it be...

What had she forgotten?


	4. Chapter 4

She didn’t have much time to think it over.

Susan felt the rumbling before she heard it, the force knocking her off her feet and onto the sands. Hands put themselves under her shoulders and lifted her back into a sort-of crouched stance; they were Teatime’s, she knew, but she felt infinitely more comfortable if she imagined them as disembodied.

Teatime, for the most part, managed to at least look distressed about the whole situation, though he still seemed smug, the kind of smugness that came with knowing something someone else doesn’t know. “Oh, that’s not good,” he said. “That’s not very good at all.”

“What?” she asked irritably. “What could possibly be going wrong now?”

“Well, you might recall my saying before that it’s only humans who have trouble maintaining a corporeal shape in this realm. There are certain other... things that find it much easier and outstay their welcome.”

“‘Things?’”

“Monsters, mostly.”

She had heard of creatures in far-off Klatch, shaped like earthworms but large as dragons (proper dragons, mind you, not those pathetic little creatures that exploded if you looked at them the wrong way), that tore through the sands the way fish swam through water. They had something to do with the spice trade, but she didn’t know much more than that; zoology wasn’t exactly the most in-depth class at the Quirm College for Young Ladies.

As the beast reared over them, casting a shadow in a sunless world, she suddenly wished that they had gone over it a bit more.

“Now would be the time to--” The beast roared, and they turned on their heels to run before Teatime even finished his sentence.

Running across sand is never easy; running across sand in a dress is nigh impossible. Susan couldn’t help but glower as Teatime seemed to skip ahead of her, once again envying his terrible youth and vitality as the worm plunged below the sands just inches away from her. If she was going to end up being eaten by this--

And then, Teatime fell.

It was a very ungraceful fall, unbecoming of an Assassin, and seemed to be over nothing, if not dramatic irony. The gash of unreality in his face hit the sand hard and he sputtered, looking as if he were offended that his own feet would betray him in such a way--

The creature happened to surface just where Teatime had fallen, engulfing him in its gaping maw.

Though she wasn’t given much time to absorb this new information, Susan was used to considering options under pressure and extreme time constraints, having been a teacher, a mother, and the wife of Time. She took it all in: Teatime was dead. Again. Sort of. He was, most likely, slightly more dead than he had previously been. Death, for some people, was a bit less black and white than it was for most; for Teatime, it was practically a rainbow of grey. Teatime was, however, the only other being around (excluding the massive worm-monster, which didn’t seem like someone you would want to have tea with), the only one who actually seemed to have some knowledge about the afterlife, due to his extended stay there, and... well.

She couldn’t just leave him to rot in the stomach of a giant monster for the rest of eternity.

Well, to be honest, she could. It would be easy, really-- far easier than what she actually planned on doing. Perhaps she had just grown soft in her old age. Perhaps all the sand was getting to her head.

Either way, the creature was bearing down on her at an alarming speed. She wouldn’t be able to help anyone, partially-digested psychopath or otherwise, if she was eaten as well.

“ **Stop right this instant**.”

And it did, paralyzed in mid-strike as if a wizard had cast a particularly effective freezing spell. Susan smirked, rather pleased with her own intuition. The way she saw it, she was still Death’s granddaughter, and she was still under her grandfather’s domain; therefore, all the rights and privileges she had tried so very hard to deny in life had suddenly become very, very useful.

She stared at her hand as if there was a sword in it until, indeed, there was a sword in it. The monster, though it lacked a proper face and sentience, seemed nervous as she stepped towards it. “ **Don’t move**.” And with that last order, she sliced the belly of the beast right open.

Teatime came tumbling out, wet like a newborn, and looked no worse for the wear, despite having spent a few minutes inside of a digestive tract. In fact, he looked downright pleased. “Look what I found!” he said, holding up his discovery like a cat bringing its master a dead chipmunk. 

It was his eye. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with apologies to frank herbert


	5. Chapter 5

Susan frowned at it. She was sure it still belonged to... Well, she thought, it wasn’t like she had checked in on her first charges in a while. And Gawain had always been one for adventure and travel. She winced despite herself as Teatime stuffed the glass ball back into the void of his face.

Surprisingly, his face was a great deal less-voidish after the eye was put back in its proper place; in fact, it had seemingly turned back to nor-- well, how it had looked before. Teatime was smiling, touching his skin like he thought it would disappear again at any moment. “Perhaps...” he said, thinking out loud. “Perhaps it wasn’t you that was keeping me back at all.”

“Wonderful. I’m glad you’ve got that settled.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you think we can get on with the whole ‘crossing over to the other side’ business, then? Or are there any other monsters out there that are likely to swallow you up, because this isn’t the kind of thing I care to do twice.”

“Oh, there are plenty of monsters...” He looked around. “Luckily, I seem to be the only one here right now. Would you care to head back to the wall?”

The invisible wall still stood there in the middle of the black sands, shimmering and splendid in its absurdity, but something felt... different about it. It seemed less imposing, more welcoming. Something had changed.

They stopped just before it once again. “Well,” Teatime said, turning to face her, “this is it.”

He paused, looking away slightly, and she wondered what he was going to do. Kiss her? Certainly a lot had happened, but it didn't seem right for him. She had never fancied herself a bodice-ripper heroine, anyway, and even if she had, she was far too old for such things, now. Hug her? That worked better with the creepy mother-fixated vibe he had developed towards her, but something about him screamed an aversion for physical contact, and she didn’t exactly want to walk into the mystery of oblivion covered in worm gut juice. Awkward minutes passed.

He took her hand and gave her a firm handshake.

“I wish you luck, Miss Susan. Though, I hardly think you’ll need it. Not anymore.” He grinned widely and stepped towards the wall.

“Where are you going?” she asked, though she really didn’t know why.

He shrugged. “To wherever I think I’m going to go,” he said. “You know, I’ve watched a lot of people walk through this wall over the decades. It seems to me like all the good-hearted people think they’re bad, and end up somewhere bad, and all the bad-hearted people think they’re good, and end up somewhere good. Doesn’t that sound terribly strange to you?”

“I’ve heard stranger.” A pause. “Where will you end up?”

“Someplace good, I believe.” He laughed, as if it were funny. “Goodbye, Miss Susan.”

He stepped through the wall, body shimmering like a desert mirage. With each step, he faded, until he disappeared from sight altogether.

Susan sighed and touched the wall, and was partially surprised to find that it passed through. Had she resolved whatever issue was keeping her back? She hadn’t even figured out what the issue was in the first place!

_Acceptance_ , said a little voice in the back of her mind. _You truly accepted the abnormal destiny the world had given you, instead of the normal path you wanted. You am become Death._

What nonsense. She had probably just forgotten to turn the stove off.

As she stepped through the glimmering wall, she felt her body fading, felt her memories rushing out like sand through a cracked glass. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and walked into oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] It is a scientific fact that all children slowly but surely transform into their parents, culminating in a shocked silence after an argument with their own children about something they too enjoyed doing at their age. There have been thesises.


End file.
